I'm leaving for college in the fall and was wondering if I should invest in an iPad to accommodate my laptop. I would like to tote the iPad around to class to take notes and such but still keep my laptop in the dorm for larger projects or when I absolutely need it. Would an iPad be a good choice?
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Would an iPad be good for college?
- Thread starter Duhdrenda
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EricNau
Moderator emeritus
The iPad is really great if you have a lot of online reading, especially PDFs. At least, that's what I use it for... reading journal articles. But if you're in a major or school which relies heavily on paper textbooks, an iPad wouldn't be of much help IMO.
It might be best to wait and see. I imagine it will become pretty obvious if an iPad would suit your needs after the first few weeks of class.
It might be best to wait and see. I imagine it will become pretty obvious if an iPad would suit your needs after the first few weeks of class.
macbook pro i5
macrumors 65816
Yes! Pages is an absolute pleasure to use.Just buy a wireless key board for long amounts of typing.
FloatingBones
macrumors 68000
This is all excellent advice. I do expect that some percentage of schools will have e-book options this fall, and a much larger percentage will in the fall of 2013.
You could ask your school contacts point blank which of your courses will have e-book options this fall. They may not know at this point; students that ask may help them move in that direction. Keep asking, and make your decision as late as possible. Deferring decisions is part of the art of engineering. 🙂
At the same time, there's not a huge downside waiting a year in getting an iPad. Performance will be better next year -- especially if processor circuit size shrinks.
macbook pro i5
macrumors 65816
Well they decided to use the 32nm process for the new ipad 2 wifi only models so I guess we will see that in the new iPad.
Yes! And it's super easy to find textbooks for the iPad. Between kindle and Kno Textbooks app, about 90% of my books have been available on the iPad.
I use it and its nice I have to say... BUT its definitely a luxury, its not something thats by no means necessary but if you use it for other things then its pretty handy, you can use it to take notes, as an extra monitor, read course books etc
xnickitynickx
macrumors regular
I've been using my iPad in college since 2010. I've never regretted it. I keep my MacBook at home for larger projects, but in class my iPad is king. My tools are penultimate w/ Targus stylus and pages for typed notes. You can't go wrong with it.
ReallyBigFeet
macrumors 68030
My daughter took her iPad to college to use for PDF reading of textbooks, but the damn University utilizes DRM'd PDF's that require Adobe Reader to decrypt so no luck with that.
jackc
macrumors 65816
I use my iPad extensively for academic work, especially for reading PDFs and for notetaking. I warmly recommend it.
MacBH928
macrumors G3
having an ipad can make a huge differnce in productivity but it depends in you and ypur budget and what are you going to study.
Although ipad is great for reading and accessing thr net and contacting friends, I wouldnt replace text books and notes with this. There is just no substitute for real paper to flip through and mark notes on.
it can be a great extra tool
Although ipad is great for reading and accessing thr net and contacting friends, I wouldnt replace text books and notes with this. There is just no substitute for real paper to flip through and mark notes on.
it can be a great extra tool
Honestly I'd say you should stick to your laptop. iPads are great for reading but when it comes to typing you'll need a physical keyboard. Of course you can buy a wireless one, but that basically ruins the whole point of a portable tablet.
iPad serves all my purposes in college except 1...coding. I literally do everything (papers, keynotes, buy books, class pdfs, photo editing, movie editing, music recording) on iPad. When I have to write Java, C++, or an iOS app....that's the only thing my Mac is used for now.
ReallyBigFeet
macrumors 68030
Have it, it sometimes works and most times crashes. Not a very stable app on large files like tech journals with illustrations.
She has the little netbook MBA model and it serves her needs in both the classroom and in the dorm. I'd really recommend that over an iPad for a college student. Small, portable and so much more versatile than an iPad for note taking, writing reports, working with spreadsheets, etc.
I would honestly wait and see what your needs are, I really wish that's what I did and I'm now a junior in college. My freshman year I went all out and bought an iMac as my at home device and an iPad 1 for my device to take to college. While I love how convienent the iPad is to grab and type notes on, I have found it pretty useless for everything else. It's more frusterating than anything, it takes a long time to load certain web pages and most of the time those web pages crash. I also thought ebooks would be a big thing by now but I found that I couldn't even trust paying for and downloading a whole textbook on my iPad without the fear of it crashing. And really, most of the time I don't even need something to take to class and bring a notebook and pen just in case. If I could go back in time I would have just bought a MacBook Pro and had one good solid device to carry around and have all my things on, even if it may be a little more to take to class.